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This is. The. Case in the
future of technology.

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Welcome to innovation fixation I'm Beth
currently entrepreneurship professor at

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Hillsborough community college and
today's guest host with me wanna Bagley

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C.E.O. And founder of
Tech plays oh so D.H.

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Can you tell us a little bit about
tech plays out tech plays own is

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a Science and Technology Center we operate
for ages seven to seventeen and we're

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excited about getting kids
interested in robotics and three D.

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Printing app inventing programming
and science at a very young age

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a whole Wow that sounds so exciting so
how did this idea originate what got you

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started I have

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a computer science degree from the
University of South Florida I also have five

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kids and at the time my oldest was nine
years old and he wasn't as excited about

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science as I hoped he would be and I was
looking for an opportunity to not only

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excite my kids about science and technology
but also excite other kids and I wanted

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to use my computer science degree and
still be at home with the kids so my

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entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and I
had the idea of starting an after school

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program and

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a summer camp where we could expose kids
to the fun sides of science as well as

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engage them in some of those complex topics
that they wouldn't readily understand

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so we begin to use robots and snap circuits
and dissections of them I waltz to

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really talk about some of the core top. The
exact existence audience and the world

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around them are that sound so exciting so
in the early stages I mean was there any

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key partners that you that you had for your
company I would imagine that maybe the

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school system or someone like that how
did it all get rolling along that's

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a great question Beth in the very beginning
tech plays own we went to the Small

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Business Development Center right there in
channels are right and we met with some

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great mentors Daniel James was one of them
and he helped us to really assess the

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market to see if there were enough students
to keep our business profitable and

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then we wrote

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a small grant for the school district of
Hillsborough County in which we would go

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to the students after school and
bring our robots in and have

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a great time with them once we saw how
well the students had Edison elementary

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actually ten years ago when we saw how
well Edison students were doing we thought

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well perhaps we should open this up for
other students in the Brydon community I'm

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going to be

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a little politically incorrect here as
much as we need an already students and

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girls to be involved in science technology
engineering and math in America we

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really need all students and we discovered
that white males black males white

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females black the males all of them
needed more access to hands on STEM so we

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started Tech plays and with that in
mind that we wanted to give all kids an

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opportunity to engage
in math and science on

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a higher level than they were getting in
school but also in an exciting hands on

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way it sounds like you are so committed
to to this cause and it's such

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a positive awesome thing that you and
your company are doing and you kind of

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touched on this

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a little bit but I'm curious to know about
the ways that you can expand I mean it

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sounds like it might even be something that
could be franchised or so what are the

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next steps for tech
players don't do you have

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a plan for the future so in
the beginning we actually had

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a facility where students would come and
we would pay rent and have all sorts of

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huge expenses we just. I offered about five
years ago that it was much better to be

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mobile so that was one change that we've
made within the past five years tech plays

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on us now mobile and our staff and facilitators
will take our equipment to whatever

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facility request us so we've been

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a Boy Scout meetings and Girl Scout
meetings we've got to cherish is we've been

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inside schools and and so we offer our
programs there we are excited about the fact

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that took place on does have a model
that is franchise level and we have

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a quite looked at that but it is something
that we're excited about because here is

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what's happened back whereas ten years
ago we were on the cutting edge now tech

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plays own types of activities or are
more commonplace if you can you hear the

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verbiage about stim pretty much everywhere
you go however we've discovered that

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there are some parents and teachers
who don't quite believe that

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a five year old can program but I'm
here to tell you they can yes well it's

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a mind it why don't you tell us about
that or even any other story that you can

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think of something that that you've seen

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a story that you can share about tech
plays on in how the children interact

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remember well you may not remember I may
be dating myself here the Dick and Jane

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books that we received as first graders
and those were our primary readers in the

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beginning if you were to look at
a first grader now and hand them

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a Dick and Jane book Go Spot go see see
Dick run they probably laugh at our

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first graders have advanced far beyond
what we were when we were their age is and

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the same thing happens with technology I
have students that are looking at the

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various platforms that are made available
by Carnegie Mellon and MIT with

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a specific focus on younger learners and
these platforms will allow the students to

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program using drag and drop technology so
although the student may not be reading

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at

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a higher level the pictures are. So that the
student can drag the clock and have the

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robot perform just based on what the
picture looks like and really that's all

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programming is programming is looking
at a set of conditions and having

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a machine do certain behaviors so if

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a student understands the logic behind
conditions and behaviors then there since

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they're programmers and that's how we start
out that's really exciting I'm curious

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to know as well about this it's like a a

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a company that is growing
and you're serving

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a lot of students and they can't just be
you is it just you or do you do you have

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other people or partners
on board I work at H.C.C.

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Full time so tech plays on is actually run
by our staff members we have directors

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we have managers and I am not the the one
who has their day to day on the visionary

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behind it but we actually have really great
staff that run the program so do you

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have a key partnership with H C
C Is there some way the H.C.C.

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Is involved I work as the outreach
manager for freight flayed is

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a National Science Foundation funded grant
program and because of our success with

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play zone I was brought on board as the
outreach manager for full weight what takes

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place on does as we serve with say kids
from ages seven to fourteen and then flake

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picks it up from there and played offers
robotics summer camps and professional

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development for teachers to place
those relationship with H.C.C.

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Is because we have

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a common goal of providing system for
students so one last thing if people are

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interested in learning more how can they
contact you. Parents can contact us by

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visiting tech plays oh dot com Check us
out on Facebook follow us on Twitter who

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have to have more families
engaged it was such

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a pleasure having you
here today it sounds like

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a fantastic fantastic company and glad to
see that you're getting children involved

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Thank you Beth.

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